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high school

It’s 6:30 on a Wednesday night and senior Henry Kayser has just finished practice with his tennis partner, Max Diess, he’s tired and longs for his thirst to be quenched. He turns and unzips his backpack, out comes a green tinted bottle, it’s the notorious Alō beverage.

As students returned from Spring Break, they were greeted with an ominous set of double doors at the main entrance; many assumed this was due to the recent school shootings that have occurred across America. However, the plans for the new doors were made a few years ago, and after a donation from Joe Weston – the same donor who funded the Commons – it became possible.

First off, it is important to note that sunburning is not a successful method of tanning and is both physically painful and in regards to your health, extremely dangerous. Although the “golden tan” many beachgoers covet can appear when burnt skin peels away, the effects of this sketchy method can be devastating. The Skin Cancer Foundation explains that “By damaging the skin’s cellular DNA, excessive UV radiation produces genetic mutations that can lead to skin cancer”. Testing your luck by not sunscreen can have adverse effects in the future.

The sun has been around for over four billion years, emitting ultraviolet rays directly on the Earth. It’s true that the sun means business and even a half hour without protective measures under direct light can leave you feeling like you have sandpaper skin for several days. So, if you do find yourself unlucky enough to be red in the face, and chafed everywhere else after this spring break, for your own good, do not let it happen again. But for now, here’s what to do:

Less than two weeks ago, 17 lives were lost at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Yet these words cannot display the weight and importance that each of those lives holds. Those students were just beginning their lives, and the teachers risked theirs to save those students. The student survivors in the last two weeks have worked make sure, as student Emma Gonzáles states, “We’re going to be another statistic about mass shooting in America, because we are going to be the last mass shooting.”

The closer the breakout from high school to real life approaches the more daunting it seems. We go from being expected to ask an adult to relieve yourself while in class, to having the immense responsibility of budgeting your finance above the bare subsistence of three Top Ramen meals a day. The leap into adulthood includes many possibilities like furthering your education at a University that can cripple your already empty pockets, submerging yourself into a competitive job pool, or for the indecisive it can even mean a gap year into lands unknown.